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Cold Victory

A Novel

Audiobook
83 of 83 copies available
83 of 83 copies available

From New York Times bestselling author Karl Marlantes comes a propulsive and sweeping novel in which loyalty, friendship, and love are put to the ultimate test.

Helsinki, 1947. Finland teeters between the Soviet Union and the West. Everyone is being watched. A wrong look or a wrong word could end in catastrophe. Natalya Bobrova, from Russia, and Louise Koski, from the United States, are young wives of their country's military attachés. When they meet at an embassy party, their husbands, Arnie and Mikhail, both world-class skiers, drunkenly challenge each other to a friendly—but secret—cross-country wilderness race.

This is another masterful novel from the author of the modern classic Matterhorn, whose "breakneck writing style is both passionate and haunting" (W. E. B. Griffin). Layered with fast-paced action, historical detail, and a keen eye for the way totalitarianism and loss of truth and privacy threatens love and friendship, Cold Victory is a triumph.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 30, 2023
      Marlantes (Deep River) sets his stirring story of innocents abroad in 1946 Finland as the Cold War is heating up. Arnie Koski is a taciturn Finnish American and champion skier assigned as the military attaché to the American legation in Helsinki. His wife, Louise, is an Oklahoman and former sorority president whose guilelessness contrasts with the savvy machinations of American and Soviet agents who are spying on them. At their first embassy party, Arnie and his Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Bobrov, who met as allies during the war, get drunk and challenge each other to a clandestine ski race through Northern Finland. As they prepare for the 500-kilometer course (“their own little Olympics”), Louise attempts to befriend Mikhail’s glamorous and wary wife, Natalya, and, in a subplot that causes the novel to drag, raise money for a Finnish orphanage. Owing to Louise’s carelessness, the ski race gets picked up by the press and spun into a proxy battle between democracy and communism. Louise’s naivete strains credulity, but the novel comes alive in its last third, as the former soldiers finally embark on the race, having agreed on acceptable types and doses of performance enhancing drugs but unprepared for the dire stakes, as Mikhail’s death is all but certain should he lose and embarrass the Soviet Union. Marlantes sticks the landing in this satisfying drama.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Bronson Pinchot embraces the tone and accents of the international characters in this political thriller. In 1947, military attachs gather at a party. An American and a Russian diplomat agree to a friendly ski race across the Finnish countryside. The audiobook focuses on the adventure of the race, but real intrigue builds around the international diplomacy that mounts once word gets out about it. Pinchot's subtle performance captures the action of the competition. He also provides a quiet but tense soundscape for the backroom dialogue, which has the wives doing most of the talking as they work to avoid a dangerous propaganda disaster. Pinchot skillfully navigates the accents and characters, providing a satisfying performance. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

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  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

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